Red Rover: Robots in Space

Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity by Roger Wiens

Reviewed by Kristin

On July 21, 1969, Americans were glued to their television sets to see Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon.  On August 6, 2012, people all over the world were glued to their television sets and computer screens to see the landing of the unmanned Mars rover, Curiosity.

Roger Wiens takes his readers on a journey though the modern era of space exploration.  While he doesn’t go as far back as the first moon landing, he writes of the exciting advances in astronomic knowledge over the past decade.  Wiens also writes of the budgetary and political crunches that exerted their forces on the projects within the scope of this book. 

Wiens starts with the NASA unmanned probe, Genesis, which collected solar wind particles from 2001 to 2004.  Wiens played a large role in proposing the mission, as well as planning and designing the spacecraft module and the solar wind collectors.  Every component was designed, tested, and tested again.  From the delayed launch of Genesis, to the unexpected crash landing, Wiens provides an insider’s look at the largely successful solar wind collection mission.

After Genesis, Wiens and his colleagues turned their attention to Mars.  Wiens devotes a large portion of the book to the ChemCam, or Chemistry and Camera.  The ChemCam consists of the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) and the Remote Micro-Imager (RMI).  To oversimplify, the LIBS directs a laser beam at something in order to analyze it, and the RMI takes a picture.  The ChemCam was placed on the Mars Curiosity rover with great expectations for scientific advancement.

While written for the non-scientist, Red Rover still covers a lot of detail.  Several pages of full color, glossy photographs help the space-enthusiast visualize the space missions described.  The book was published in 2013, soon after the landing of Curiosity, so we can expect much more information on that mission as time passes.

In 2013, look up in the night sky and you might see the International Space Station moving from horizon to horizon.  We have come a long way from looking up at the stars in centuries past; we also have so much more to explore.  Wiens takes the stargazer on a journey from the solar winds to the red rocks of Mars.